Drive
by o-seastarved
Summary: One-shot. Chuck and Blair in a different city for a night during the winter. Post 2x14. No context, slight reference to Blair having done something wrong. Includes BS.


_Summary -- One-shot. Chuck and Blair during the winter post 2x14. No context, slight reference to Blair having done something wrong (which I'm assuming just to get it out of my system, and because it's kind of different. I still believe in our CB)_

_Disclaimer: I own nothing, not Gossip Girl or Chuck/Blair. Although I hope one day to own Ed Westwick :)_

_A/N -- So I was leaving my friend's house at 2am tonight, still thinking of 2x14 and I had to write this. For anyone who is reading 'Things We've Always Had' I promise to update soon, I just couldn't think snarky and lighthearted right now. I needed to get this out and I hope you like it. I played around with a different style too and didn't have it edited (sorry Lynne, darling) because I can't sleep tonight until this is complete. It's like a catharsis I suppose. Please read and review, it would mean a lot to me!_

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_xoxo xoxo_

Everything was quiet. Cold.

The hitch of the door catching its latch behind her made only a faint noise as she left it behind. She looked down, her feet finding the slate stones that led her to gravel.

But she didn't have to find her way through the dark. She could see the shadowy red clay color of the slabs, the mud underneath. She could smell their damp musk reaching up to her.

She looked up.

The sky was light. Faded grey-blue that held a hint of orange underneath. The warmth of orange.

Trees were no longer ominous monsters with undistinguishable limbs, but elegant creatures whose statuesque stillness hovered above her, humbling her. Everything was hazy, a slightly out of focus softness around her, except for the sky.

And the air. She breathed in deep and liked when the cold crispness swelled in her chest. She could almost see it.

Her feet padded the gravel underneath her and she was acutely aware of everything surrounding her. There was a humming up above that she hadn't noticed until the gravel and the sky joined together in a chorus of audible vibrations. It sounded natural and it filled her eardrums.

The gravel ended; soft padding met pavement. And then the rickety worn down slabs of a small bridge. There was a stream somewhere.

She was alone. But she felt as if she were being watched. Her every move. Maybe it was just herself, her thoughts not entirely in tact with her body.

_xoxo xoxo_

A suction sound of resistance, a pop, and the car door opened. Crickets hummed outside and freshness invaded the leather inside.

"Hi," Serena whispered, afraid to disrupt the night.

"Thanks for coming for me, S," Blair whispered back and settled herself next to her. Serena's ethereal locks grazed Blair's face and she could have sworn she was adorned with an angel.

"Sorry it's so late. You called at midnight and it takes two hours to drive down here."

"It's ok."

"No bags?"

"I just want to go home."

Serena kissed the top of Blair's head and didn't ask questions. She already knew.

Blair felt the rolling of the car, heard the wind whip against metal outside so cleanly. She wished she could drive. She closed her eyes tight, water relocated to the corners of her lids and she squeezed harder.

She wished.

_xoxo xoxo_

"I don't know how to do this."

"Doesn't matter," he drawled in her ear with a warm breath. "Just let go."

"I can't Chuck," she whispered and could see her breath exiting her body.

"I'm right here," he replied. He was. He was so near to her that his legs were under hers; his arms reached up and covered her own, grasping over her petite hands with his own and clamping down. Bare fingers on bare fingers in the freezing cold.

She hissed in a breath and nodded. "Ok. Ok."

"Ready?" he didn't wait for her answer. His foot reached longer than hers and he pushed down, jolting the vehicle from its stationary slumber.

"Now drive," he commanded into her ear.

Another touch of warmth into her comfortably cold body.

A 73' Jaguar convertible would only do.

Blair held the wheel tight, moving it ever so slightly back and forth, nervous to let the car drive itself straight. His hands were on hers, coaxing her this way, that way, a little to the left, a tug to the right. Curves.

He pushed his foot down a little harder and a little more and a little more and now they were at full driving speed.

"I can't believe we're doing this!" Blair squealed, exhilarated.

"Shhh…" Chuck nuzzled into her neck and looked out in front of him. "Look."

Cow pastures. Farms. Wooden fences. Dewy grass and smooth, hilly vertical swells in the road. Faded grey-blue sky. Orange underneath.

It was like they were violating time. The car seemed to roll on its own volition and the road was soft and endless. Their movement blurred their figures together and they were no longer people. They were an enigma of colors and scents; part of the wind that wrapped around everything it touched without slicing into it.

This was tranquility. This was life.

Driving.

_xoxo xoxo_

Where was she?

He always knew. He knew; silently. He asked and sometimes he paid. They told him because they knew he wouldn't cause a scene. Wouldn't approach her.

She's gone to Philadelphia for the weekend, Cyrus had told him. The Rose's owned property on the Main Line, the elitist group of suburbs just west of the city. Devon was colonial, classic, old, sprawling. Chuck saw a renovated nineteenth century house on forested land. The atmosphere of a home, small entryways and secret stairwells that creaked of knowledge. But elegant, big, decorated to feel simple with all the finest furniture and silks.

Entitlement behind closed doors, ceaseless acres of grass and thoroughbred horses outside.

Timeless.

He saw Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn; The Philadelphia Story. She loved that movie.

He went to Philadelphia that weekend. There was convenient business to be done there.

"Drive," he commanded late one night.

Downtown, brown sky and gleaming lights. Charming; his limo drove over cobblestone through Old City. Gallant; around the traffic circle and to the bottom of the Art Museum steps. Elegant; by the gleaming Schuylkill reflecting the lights of boat house row.

The sky was faded grey-blue. Orange underneath.

He saw her. Underneath the sky, worshipped by the hovering trees, wrapped in the blanket of the cold air. The night was not supposed to be seen this way. But it lightened for her. To hold her there. Clear, crisp and beautiful.

_xoxo xoxo_

Her eyes opened.

"Hey B, you were sleeping," Serena told her quietly. "We're almost home."

Blair didn't move. Instead she hid her face against shoulder and leather. And cried. Weeped.

Serena's fingers sprawled through her hair as she comforted Blair. She kept going.

"I felt him," Blair whispered. "I thought I wouldn't feel him if I got away to another city just for one weekend." She cried a little bit harder at the admission.

"Just let go, Blair."

"I can't."

She wondered if he could ever talk to her again. If they would watch the Philadelphia Story. Learn to drive together down Providence Road.


End file.
